


Rotted to the Core

by Cosimas_Ass



Category: Descendants (Disney Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-24
Updated: 2018-08-24
Packaged: 2019-07-02 00:49:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15785559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cosimas_Ass/pseuds/Cosimas_Ass
Summary: Drabble collection from the Core Four's past and adjustment to Auradon.





	Rotted to the Core

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fic! Be nice! :D

They had been too rowdy in the house that day, not that that was out of the ordinary. Jay and Carlos had a race through the house while Mal and Evie had done their damnedest to get as much in the way as humanly possible. The girls had thrown whatever they could find at the boys and Evie tripped Jay when he turned around the kitchen table. He smacked his head pretty hard on the wall but that barely even registered in his one-track mind till after he won. They whooped and hollered until Jafar decided the kids had broke one too many of Maleficent's magic knickknacks and had been, pretty violently for a gang of 8-year-olds, thrown out of the house to hunt for mischief elsewhere. And if they got more bruises from the removal than they did from the game, well, who could tell? 

They found themselves at Lady Tremaine's place (because who doesn't lock their doors? On the Isle? Really?) and had started a paint war with the dyes and trinkets they found. Evie was practically blonde after, but you could hardly tell under the feathers and cloth Mal had woven into her hair. The Evil Queen had been…. well, let's just say that was the start of Evie’s obsession with her looks. Mal shaved Jay's head so close that he claims to this day that she nicked him in places and that he has the scars to prove it. When he got home his dad demanded that he cover up his bald head, it reminded him too much of someone else, and he grew his hair out long and wore hats ever since. Mal let Evie cut her hair short in the back and longer in the front. Her mom hated it, but it developed over the years into part of her style. Mal learned how to balance the fine line between a little bit of rebellion and her mom’s various creative punishments earlier than the rest of the gang. Carlos was the only one smart enough to know when not to participate. The others learned fast not to push it with him. They knew how Cruella got when something wasn’t just right, and they may have been evil, but even they had lines they knew not to cross.

Drizella was the one who found them, smacked them all upside the head a little harder than was absolutely necessary, and screamed that they were rotten little brats, all the way down to their cores. They had thought it was funny. So funny that they made it their catchphrase, their mantra. Rotten to the core, they would call each other for years to come, proud of how just like their parents they turned out to be. 

Then suddenly they were in Auradon. Beautiful, shiny, good Auradon. Suddenly they were supposed to be the good guys, one of those pansy heroes they had looked down on all their lives. Suddenly “rotten to the core” was a threat, a hard truth Mal would give anything to undo, to forget. The spiteful whisper in the back of her head, the one that sounded a lot like her mother, wouldn't let it go. It kept on asking her: What if she was really rotten? Was she corrupted all the way to her innermost parts? Would she ever truly be washed clean of what she was and where she came from? If your core is tainted, how can you ever hope of remaking yourself into anything better than what you already are? The nightmares came in Auradon just like they came on the Isle. _There are things you can’t fix_ , Mal decided one night as she crawled into Evie's bed after a particularly dreadful dream, _I just hope I’m not one of them._


End file.
